Back around the time of the Galaxy Nexus, I recall a counter-culture developing, calling for an end to the insanity of oversized phones with screens as big as 4.7 inches. They wanted a smaller alternative, built for human hands and human pockets. While the itty bitty smartphone committee might have lost the good fight in a general sense, they now have a few more options, including the Xperia X Compact. Its screen is only 4.6 inches. Hey, it's the principle that counts.

An alarming report was circulating the internet earlier today claiming that Google had stopped production of the Pixel and Pixel XL. Yeah, it didn't make a lot of sense, and indeed it appears to be incorrect. Google has confirmed the Pixel is still in production. You can put your pitchforks down now.

The Mobile Dev + Test conference is back this year and better than ever with in-depth Android development and mobile training, tutorials, keynotes, and sessions! In addition, it will be collocated with IoT Dev + Test. Both conferences will be happening at the Westin San Diego April 24–28, 2017. If you register for one conference, you gain access to both conference programs. You can pick and choose what content is right for you and build a customized week of learning and networking.

Snap Inc., the official name of the company behind Snapchat, filed for IPO (Initial Public Offering) yesterday and is planning to be a publicly traded company in March. In its official filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Snap shed a lot of light on its goal as a company and how it operates, and among the pages and pages of financial details and jargon that I don't understand, it mentioned Snapchat's risk factors and potential growth hurdles, both of which do have a few instances of "Android" in them.

The main takeaway from the sections talking about Android is that Snap is cognizant of its app's poor performance on our beloved OS.

Google currently has two launcher apps in the Play Store; Google Now Launcher and Pixel Launcher. In a few months, there will only be one. According to an email forwarded to us by a tipster, Google has alerted GMS partners of its intention to remove Google Now Launcher from the Play Store in the coming weeks. OEMs that use GNL have options, though.

The games of Japanese game developer Kairosoft are known for their gameplay and the distinctive pixellated art style. There's a new one out now, named 8-Bit Farm which... you guessed it, simulates a farm in 8-bit graphics.

It's pretty similar to Kairosoft's other offerings, in that you build something - in this case a farm. Build the best farm possible and attract as many visitors and 'agritourists' to see the flowers that are laid. Or raise the best livestock of any farm in the region. Alternatively, produce the best crops. It's really up to you. The game has a tutorial at the start, but generally leaves you alone after that.

A couple of weeks ago, Cody found interesting strings in his teardown of v7.4 of the Play Store that hinted at an update or complete overhaul of the My Apps screen. Today we have our first glimpse of what that new design looks like, thanks to a tipster who has it on his device.

Like Cody's teardown revealed, the new layout has different sorting methods and string names for when the app was last updated or used. But with the screenshots below, we can fully understand how the code translates into a usable UI.

Instead of the Installed and All tabs you see now for apps you have on your device and all apps you've ever downloaded from the Play Store, respectively, there's a new separate tab for Updates.

Emojis, there are thousands of them and yet you always seem to be looking for that one emoji that doesn't exist yet. Did we have to wait this long to have a facepalm or crossed fingers? I guess we did. Anyway, let's skip the pointless blabber and go straight to the point: WhatsApp has new emojis on Android.

Regardless of which version of Android you're using, WhatsApp 2.17.44 beta (APK Mirror) has implemented the font images to properly display plenty of new emojis that are found in Unicode 9.0 and Emoji 4.0. If that sounds like jargon to you, you should know that in layman terms, they're all the new emojis found in iOS 10.2.

Home security cameras are great, made all the better when there's a great app to control them with. Accordingly, tinyCam Monitor has just had a major update to version 7.4, with some big features surrounding the cloud in tow.

The talking point here is definitely 24/7 cloud recording. This means that the recordings, which will now take place continuously, will be uploaded to the cloud, and when the quota of 500MB is exceeded, the oldest JPEGs uploaded will be deleted to make way for new footage. There are other new features for recording, as well - the archive for cloud recordings and on-device recordings can be deleted on demand, and less memory is used for the Motion JPEG (MJPEG) streams.

The latest release of Google Photos hit today and it brings a few visual adjustments to a couple of the screens we visit most often. The pages for Albums and Device folders have been rearranged a bit to pack more things on the screen at once. The teardown also reveals upcoming support for easier photo sharing through Nearby and a new creation tool for mashing up your pictures and video.